The Right Way to Think About Social Media

Metaphors are a very useful tool when trying to describe something new, and I have found it particularly useful when describing social media to those who want to understand what it is. I've heard them all over the past year or so, many of them posed as rhetorical questions, pointing to the logical conclusion that social media needs to be taken more seriously by marketers and entrepreneurs.  

One of my favorites comes from Gary Vaynerchuk, and he asks us: "Is social media the pepper or the steak?" It's the steak, Gary argues. Some others, like Jay Baer, are worried that social media has been oversold as a savior — and can't possibly live up to that billing. Jay urges us to consider that perhaps social media should "be a kicker rather than a quarterback."

I must, with respect, disagree with my metaphor-making friends and suggest a different approach. Social media isn't the steak or the pepper. Social media isn't the kicker or the quarterback. Why? Because those metaphors suggest that social media is something we can pull out of a tool kit and use, when it is something completely different than that. If we keep with the football metaphor, social media is the playing field. It is where we play the game. It is where messages spread. In the very near future, it will be where the fortunes of marketers and entrepreneurs will be won or lost. The playing field used to be television, radio, and print — all one way mediums. The playing field today, with our iPhones and netbooks giving us 24/7 access to digital media, has become a two-way conversation.  

As Clay Shirky, author of "Here Comes Everybody," said last year at the U.S. State Department (I urge you to watch his entire presentation here):

"The choice we face...isn't whether that's the media environment (social media) we want to operate in, that's the media environment we've got. The question we all face now is 'How can we make best use of this medium?' even though it means changing the way we've always done it.  

What would you do differently if all of a sudden your entire playing field changed?